General Cooking and Recipes

Cooking outside the (bento) box.

Cooking in aluminium foil in the pan

Hi everybody! I saw on a bento book a method for cooking small amounts of food at the same time: they put an aluminium foil below an ingredient in the 18 cm non-stick pan, so for example they are able to cook chicken in a half of the pan (on a piece of aluminium foil), and some vegetables in the other half, on the pan or on another piece of aluminium foil. Then if you want to cook some other food you just have to use a new aluminium foil and the pan is already clean! I thought I found the japanese secret for cooking small amounts of many dishes at once,
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Mochi crush

So, a few years ago my friend Min taught me to make this mochi-esque dessert/snack/treat: Mix sweet/sticky/glutinous rice flour with enough water to make a batter with the consistency of heavy cream. Pour that onto a buttered flat plate or flat form so that you have a nice large 1/8" or 1/4" flat pool of batter. Microwave or steam (microwaving is vastly faster for me) for a minute or two, watching carefully. The batter is cooked when it has changed from bright opaque white to a more translucent white/pearly grey.
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How long do bento ingredients keep in the fridge?

If I can think of one single question whose answer would help me be a better bentoist, it's how long bento ingredients (carrots, rice balls, veggie stir fry - anything) can be expected to sit in the fridge and still come out not only nontoxic but tasty. For instance, I stir-fried a little bok choy for bentos later this week this evening - but will it still taste good on Monday? On Thursday? Does anyone have any good guidelines?
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First time cooking

Ok, so here is where you can post about how you survived cooking on your own for the first time. I didn't start cooking on my own until last year around this time. I moved into my first apartment on my own (with a room mate of course). Before I moved, I had found this book called "College Cooking: Feed Yourself and Your Friends" (http://www.amazon.com/College-Cooking-Feed-Yourself-Friends/dp/1580088260/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231520084&sr=8-1)

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